The North Icelandic Jet and two branches of the East Greenland Current transport the dense water to and across the cataract. The dense and cold water mass that spills across the cataract, known as Denmark Strait Overflow Water (DSOW), is thought to originate from the modification of water masses in the eastern Nordic Sea, the Greenland Sea, and the Iceland Sea. The cataract provides one of the main inflows of North Atlantic Deep Water, accounting for around half of dense water overflow between the Nordic Seas and the North Atlantic. Due to the Coriolis effect, the downward flow of water is deflected to the right, resulting in the descending water on the Greenland side of the channel being roughly 1 km (0.62 mi) higher than the opposite side of the channel. At the Greenland–Iceland Rise – an elevated ridge forming the cataract's apex – the colder water cascades along the seafloor to a depth of around 3,000 m (10,000 ft). It is formed by the density difference of the water masses either side of the Denmark Strait the southward-flowing water originating from the Nordic Seas is colder and consequently more dense than the Irminger Sea to the south of the strait. The descending column of water is approximately 200 m (660 ft) wide and 200 m (660 ft) thick and descends over a length of around 1,000 km (620 mi). The cataract transports around 3.2 million m 3 (110 million cu ft) of water per second, greatly eclipsing the discharge of the Amazon River into the Atlantic Ocean and the flow rate of the former Guaíra Falls. It is the tallest undersea waterfall, with water falling over 3.5 km (2.2 mi) this descent is over three times the height of Angel Falls, the world's tallest uninterrupted waterfall over land. The Denmark Strait cataract ( Danish: Grønlandspumpen Norwegian: Grønlandspumpa, meaning "the Greenland pump") is an undersea waterfall located in the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland. Underwater waterfall in the Atlantic Location of the Denmark Strait (shaded in dark blue), where the waterfall is located
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